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Importing Syndicated Data into Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse

Pharmaceutical companies purchase weekly and monthly sales and prescription data, known as syndicated data, from third-party vendors such as IMS, NDC, and Cegedim. Syndicated data vendors acquire data from drug wholesalers and retailers on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis and compile a master file of customers (wholesalers, pharmacies, hospitals, and doctors) and sales or prescription transactions for customers. Measures include indirect sales, indirect units, and prescriptions, and differ by vendor and periodicity. It is used for sales force analysis reporting and customer targeting.

The data is derived from panels of physicians, pharmacies, and so on, and projected nationally. Since the panels may change on a monthly basis, syndicated data suppliers tend to change their projections of sources on a monthly basis leading to full restatements of historical data. Thus, pharmaceutical companies are required to refresh fully the data in their data warehouses. In addition, weekly data requires incremental loading.

After it is delivered by the vendor, the syndicated data must be fully reloaded into the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse in a timely manner and made available to users in order for them to make use of sales force analysis reporting.

This section includes the following topics:

• Syndicated Loading Definitions
• Data Types Supported in the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse
• Loading Syndicated Data into the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse